Okay, I’ll confess at the outset that the title of this month’s newsletter is more than a bit misleading. I’m too old, too contrary, too set in my ways, and certainly too stubborn to start a New Year with rejuvenation or even so much as a modest kick start. Resolutions? I think they largely belong to youth, although I’ll readily admit that I always set out with worthy things in mind such as losing weight, exercising more, hunting and fishing more, keeping my checkbook up to date, working less, finishing projects on time, and that sort of good intentions. However, we all know where the pavement of good intentions leads, so pardon me if I pretty much avoid both resolutions or taking that treacherous track leading to a miserably hot place.

Instead, I think I’ll find sustenance and joy in doing something which seems to become more a part of my being with each passing year; namely, taking longing looks back to younger days, enjoying the prerogative known as reflecting on the “good old days” (one of my favorite writers, Archibald Rutledge, wisely entitled one of his books about youth and young manhood Those Were the Days), doing more of what I please, flagrantly flaunting the bounds of today’s dismal preoccupation with political correctness with fervor worthy of a younger man, and piddling when it pleases me. More about piddling in a moment, but first some thoughts on what I do hope to accomplish in 2014.

Foremost on my list is at least getting into the short rows, if not actually finishing, a biography of Archibald Rutledge. It is something I’ve periodically worked on—sometimes with intensity and at others scarcely touching it for months—for two decades or more. It will be one of the biggest literary projects of my entire life, but I don’t want to think of it in terms of being a last hurrah or final flash in a very small pan. For one thing, I’ve got another book focusing on my many wonderful memories of the Smokies and my boyhood in mind, and yet another one dealing with mountain people and places, folkways and traditions, on the drawing board. Add to that two newspaper columns, one appearing weekly and a second every other week; the occasional magazine assignment, my regular book column for Sporting Classics magazine, every intention of contributing more material to “Sporting Classics Daily,” and determination to reduce the massive stock of out-of-print books I have on hand (my wife will lead cheers on this one), and I’ve got plenty looming on the horizon.

Among these the perennial favorites (and failures) involve loss of weight and improved fitness. If only I lived the lifestyle of my grandfather or even my father, excess poundage would not be a problem. As it is, just today I got a ration of grief from the good lady of the house on the subject. The simple truth of the matter, and not just for me but for our world, is that most of us don’t do anything near as much manual labor as our forebears. We may talk endlessly about food fads, appropriate diets, organically grown foods, and the like, but folks in yesteryear didn’t get fat for two primary reasons. They worked any excess calories off and in many cases they didn’t have a whopping excess of comestibles in the house at any given time. Still, I reckon I’ll try to walk more, eat a bit less, and to at least a minimal degree behave myself.

Meanwhile though, as these words are being written on New Year’s day, savory smells are wafting from the kitchen into the study. I’ve got a big pot of mixed mustard and turnip greens picked from the garden simmering away, with diced turnips in the pot along with a couple of chunks of streaked meat (that’s what we always called it, although there are other names such as streak o’ lean, fatback, side meat, salt pork, and the like). On another burner sliced turnips are cooking to a perfect tenderness. I like to mash mine up with some butter and a hearty sprinkling of pepper. To my taste they are every bit as appealing as mashed potatoes. Then there’s a whopping mess of pork backbones-and-ribs in the crock pot. They’ve been cooking since mid-morning, and I just checked a little while ago. The meat is fall-off-the-bone tender, and the ends of the ribs where they attach to the backbone are soft enough that I’m going to have some fine marrow to suck from them. If you’ve never eaten marrow from pork ribs, rest assured it’s a tiny taste of heaven to a country boy’s palate. Throw in Hoppin’ John (black-eyed peas and rice) and you have a mighty tasty way to start 2014. I just hope you fare as well.

Now that I have that little rabbit trail into gustatory delight out of the way (and I’m coming back to the keyboard after some mighty fine eating), let’s get back to piddling. There’s no easy way to define the fine art of piddling simply because it varies so much from one individual to the next. In their later years, especially at this time of year, both my paternal grandfather and father were masters of good, practical piddling. For both of them there were certain “givens,” with telling tales and recollection of friends and family who had added joy to their life looming large. Not surprisingly, their tales often revolved around hunting and fishing.

Another shared pursuit in the world of piddling involved pocket knives. Whether whittling, sharpening, trading (in the case of my grandfather—I don’t think Dad ever traded one), or doing some little task with a knife, both put considerable importance on having a good folder, sharp enough to slice a finger to the bone if one wasn’t careful, in their pockets. Then there were “projects” of one sort or another. These didn’t involve anything urgent, or, in most cases, even anything which really needed doing. On the other hand, the “task” was always fun and had a logical outcome in the eye of the beholder. Grandpa and Daddy both thought a session of cracking black walnuts and picking out the meats was a fine way to spend an evening, and given the sort of fine eating that sooner or later resulted I can’t disagree.

Another example, at least with Dad, involved making small wooden crosses, perhaps two inches high and an inch and a half across. They were beautifully done (he could make most anything out of wood and had the tools to do it) and he enjoyed giving them to friends, members of the church, neighbors, and family. Grandpa worked with wood as well, and carpentry skills ran fairly deep in the family, although goodness knows they somehow eluded me in the genetic line. However, his projects in wood tended much more towards the recreational side of things. Fashioning a fine slingshot or a walking cane suited him to a “T,” as did cutting down a dozen or so cane poles and going through the entire process of getting them ready for fishing come spring.

Incidentally, if you’ve never done this, it’s a great project to undertake with a kid. Grandpa had access to a couple of sprawling cane brakes (or is it breaks—I’ve never seen a satisfactory answer), and thanks to lots of experience he had a keen eye for just the size cane he wanted. He’d cut them down with a hatchet or saw and lug them back to the house. There he would carefully trim the little side limbs and foliage from the canes and use a saw to cut through the big end at a joint. He’d also trim the small end at a joint. The next step was to take a length of sturdy cord and tie a cinder block or heavy weight (Grandpa used window weights) to the small end. The cane would then be suspended from a tree limb or barn rafter to dry. The weight made it hang perfectly straight so that when cured you had a pole without any bend in it.

Once the canes had cured, turning from green to an eye-pleasing light yellow, he would take them down and remove the weights. At that point he sometimes gave them a coating of shellac (they lasted longer that way), but not always. I think he enjoyed the process so much it didn’t matter whether the canes only lasted a season or two. At that juncture all that remained was to equip the pole with a length of line (you wanted it to be about three feet longer than the length of the pole) and rig it with hook, bobber, and sinker. The hooks were store bought at a penny apiece, but the float and sinkers were homemade. Grandpa would use pieces of cork from bottle stoppers and other sources (one time he somehow acquired a big slab of cork and it outfitted many a pole) and his weights came from the thin pieces of lead used to cover roofing nails. Once all that was done it was time to think “hurry spring.” Those simple fishing outfits caught many a catfish, bream, and knottyhead, not to mention the occasional trout or bass along with plenty of “trash” fish, and the poles gave about as much pleasure in the preparing as in the catching. Now that was what I’d call productive piddling.

Hopefully you get the idea. My piddling tends to run in the direction of things which need to be done but have no specific time frame. One example should suffice. I’ve got to get my muscadines and scuppernongs pruned in the next month or so, but it isn’t weighing heavy on me. I’ll root some of the cuttings, dig up some I rooted last year to give to others (I’ve already got 15 or 20 varieties and at least twice that many vines), and the missus will likely turn some of the longest, most supple runners into wreathes. I somehow like seeing things of that sort put to decorative use, and you can perform similar piddling with deer antlers (think a turkey tote or key chain fob) or turkey bones (wingbone call, humerus used for the handle of a short, fixed-blade knife, or striker).

That’s enough on piddling for now, although I guess when you get right down to it this newsletter involves piddling. I’ll finish with recipes, some of them the essence of simplicity involving my New Year’s day fare, and others for the soups and stews which go so well at this season. The latter all come from this month’s special, Field to Feast.

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